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APR  14  1915 


Patriotism,  Philanthropy,  and  RELicms^ '>':;, .» ^^00^ 


A^N    ^^.DDR^SS 


IlEFORE   THE 


AmericaiN  Colonization  Society, 


JANUARY   16,    1877, 


ALEXANDER  T.  McGILL,  D.D.  LED. 


PUBLISHED     BY     REQUEST. 


WASHINGTON  CITY  : 

Colonization  Buildinc;,  450  Pennsylvania  Avenue. 
1877. 


A^DDRESS. 


Mr.  President:  Truthfulness  must  be  considered  the  only  rock  on 
which  any  moral  reform  or  social  combination  will  ever  abide.  After 
long  observation  I  affirm  that  the  American  Colonization  Society  is 
the  most  truthful  institution  of  uninspired  wisdom  I  have  known  to 
be  set  up  amid  the  passions  of  men  and  changes  of  time.  No  rock  in 
ocean  ever  stood  the  conflict  of  surges  at  the  base  and  tumult  of  storms 
at  the  summit  with  more  simple  and  unchanging  aspect  of  stability  and 
usefulness.  Truth  is  not  simple  as  error  is.  She  disdains  the  poverty 
of  one  idea,  prefers  to  be  complex,  proceeds  with  a  balance,  and  re- 
poses with  confidence  only  when  she  is  many-sided  in  her  complete- 
ness. The  wreath  which  was  laid  on  the  cradle  of  this  organization — 
patriotism,  philanthropy,  and  religion — is  the  same  as  it  was  threescore 
years  ago,  without  the  fading  of  one  leaf  or  flower,  whilst  every  other 
society  with  but  one  of  these  objects  in  its  aim  has  withered  away. 
Truth  is  also  positive  in  her  moderation.  Error  is  negative,  and 
therefore  easier  as  well  as  simpler,  coinciding  with  the  passions  of 
men,  and  achieving  success  with  a  quicker  speed  than  is  possible  for 
the  solid  and  temperate  and  well-poised  movement  of  the  true. 

Societies  younger  than  ours,  with  the  one  idea  of  abolishing  slavery 
at  any  cost  and  without  delay,  have  triumphed  already  and  disappeared, 
because  their  work  is  done.  But  ours  may  now  be  seen  coming  slowly 
up,  with  scant  resources,  to  a  ravaged  field  and  forlorn  occupation,  and 
yet  the  best  opportunity  that  ever  dawned  on  her  benevolence.  No 
changes  have  changed  her  in  the  least.  Slavery  predominant  and 
slavery  destroyed  are  just  the  same  thing  to  her  interference — the 
problem  of  the  black  man  remaining  unsolved  to  her  eye.  We  have 
always  proposed  to  work  with  him  as  a  freeman,  and  therefore  gladly 
accept  his  emancipation  everywhere.  But  what  is  freedom  to  him  in 
the  social  degradation  which  yet  remains?  What  is  liberty  worth 
when  his  own  is  used  by  others  more  than  by  himself,  and  that  to 
make  him  a  slave  to  his  own  passions.'  What  is  the  bill  of  rights  in 
his  hand  when  it  is  reddened  in  a  war  of  races  or  trampled  with  con- 


tempt,  which  no  constitutional  amendment  can  amend  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  our  nature?  What  is  religion  itself  to  him,  the  freedom  with 
which  the  Son  makes  free,  when  its  altars  are  abandoned  for  the  polls, 
and  its  pulpits  forsaken  by  the  best  culture  it  has,  for  the  stump,  the 
tribunal,  and  the  brawl  of  pot-house  politicians? 

It  must  be  confessed  that  complicated  misery  and  fearful  danger 
attend  the  glory  of  his  manumission  still,  and  it  calls  for  more  than 
one  idea  to  heal  the  complication.  No  remedy  here  can  advance 
him  another  step  ;  no  mechanism  of  party  can  put  on  him  the  true 
habiliment  of  manhood.  We  must  send  him  home,  when  he  is  will- 
ing to  go,  and  see  that  his  home  is  attractive  and  safe,  as  it  was  not 
when  he  was  torn  from  it  and  sold  from  bondage  to  bondage.  We 
must  consign  him  as  a  citizen  from  one  Republic  to  another,  with 
gain  to  him  in  the  transfer  of  true  instead  of  nominal  "  liberty, 
equality,  and  fraternity."  We  must  do  by  him  for  his  home  what 
the  navies  of  Christendom  could  not  do  for  the  coast  of  Africa — stop 
the  traffic  in  human  flesh  ;  and  we  must  do  by  him  what  all  the  mis- 
sionaries of  Christendom  besides  could  not  do  for  a  quarter  of  the 
globe — span  it  with  an  equatorial  church,  redeem  it  from  the  curse  of 
Ham,  and  overspread  the  mysteries  of  darkness  and  death  on  its  bosom 
with  the  mysteries  of  "a  kingdom  which  cannot  be  moved." 

Such  is  the  composite  object  we  offered  sixty  years  ago  as  a  true 
catholicon  for  the  African  race.  And  who  can  doubt  it  now,  or 
allege  that  it  was  faulty  or  mistaken  in  any  one  of  its  ingredients  ? 
We  seem  to  be  hindered  at  present  from  gathering  certificates  on 
every  hand.  Party  faction,  more  than  sectional  faction  ever  did,  pre- 
vents us  from  asking  Congress,  and  State  after  State,  and  church  after 
church  to  witness  the  excellence  of  our  object  and  the  wisdom  of  our 
way.  But  it  is  enough  to  recall  the  memorials  of  attestation,  which 
all  men  must  honor,  as  a  verdict  on  the  past  and  a  trust  for  the  future. 
It  would  be  well  to  begin  another  decade  with  a  roll-call  of  the  orig- 
inal officers  and  members,  and  ask  what  one  of  those  illustrious  men 
would  now,  if  he  were  living,  and  led  by  the  logic  of  events  which 
have  intervened,  regret  the  institution,  as  too  slow  and  cumbrous  and 
neutral,  or  in  any  one  particular  as  not  suited  and  true  to  the  situation  ? 
Would  Bushrod  Washington,  or  Henry  Clay,  or  Daniel  Webster,  or 
John  Randolph,  or  William  Thornton,  or  Francis  S.  Key,  or  John 
Mason,  or  Charles  Marsh  ;  would  Robert  Finley,  or  Samuel  J.  Mills, 
or  William  Meade;  would  any  one  of  the  fifty  original  members  who 
sat  as  peers  in  the  first  council  of  colonization,  and  represented  there 


the  patriarchal  wisdom  of  JefFerson,  Madison,  Monroe,  and  Marshall, 
sav  that  the  amazing  overturn  which  we  have  witnessed  in  this  genera- 
tion has  altered  one  syllable  of  the  original  platform  on  which  our 
object  was  placed  ? 

1st.  "  To  rescue  the  free  colored  people  of  the  United  States  from 
their  political  and  social  disadvantages. 

2d.  "  To  place  them  in  a  country  where  they  may  enjoy  the  bene- 
fits of  free  government,  with  all  the  blessings  which  it  brings  in  its 
train. 

3d.  '•  To  spread  civilization,  sound  morals,  and  true  religion  through- 
out the  continent  of  Africa. 

4th.   "To  arrest  and  destroy  the  slave  trade. 

5th.  "To  afford  slave  owners  who  wish  or  are  willing  to  liberate 
their  slaves  an  asylum  for  their  reception." 

Only  the  last  plank  of  this  original  has  been  loosened  in  the  least 
by  the  great  convulsion  through  which  we  have  passed.  Slave  owners 
no  longer  exist  among  us  with  wishes  or  willingness  to  be  consulted 
and  regarded.  But  surely  the  nation  itself,  whose  fiat  has  broken  every 
yoke  and  made  the  slaves  its  own  constituency,  should  be  willing  to 
liberate  them  from  every  ban  that  is  left,  f>om  the  very  name  of 
**  freedman,"  and  help  them  to  an  asylum  which  is  absolutely  safe, 
and  more  and  more  complete  in  all  its  appointments  and  attractions. 
What  means  "  intimidation  "  in  the  charges  and  counter-charges  of  this 
convulsive  present?  No  such  word  has  ever  yet  been  heard  at  the 
polls  of  Liberia.  No  military  muster  is  made,  or  needed,  or  called 
for  there  to  guard  the  franchise  of  a  colored  citizen.  There,  in- 
deed, he  is  his  own  master,  free  to  canvass,  free  to  change,  free  to 
vote,  without  one  claim  of  antecedents  on  the  one  hand,  or  fear  of 
guns  upon  the  other.  Is  it  not  now  as  much  as  ever,  and  more 
than  ever,  "an  asylum"  for  the  black  man? 

If  he  prefers,  after  all,  to  make  this  country  his  home,  with  a  view 
to  advance  the  improvement  of  his  lot  and  elevate  his  race,  we  are  not 
done  with  him  in  the  true  objects  of  our  colonization.  We  shall  stand 
at  his  side  to  help  him  and  rejoice.  For  his  advancement  anywhere 
is  not  only  a  chief  aim  of  the  Society,  but  a  great  auxiliary,  both  at 
home  and  abroad.  The  more  elevated  he  becomes  here  the  more 
fitted  he  is  for  Africa — to  go  himself  or  send  others.  We  have  never 
failed  to  choose  the  best  for  this  emigration.  If  he  be  not  cultured 
enough  to  know  how  to  work,  and  how  to  vote,  and  how  to  bear 
ofiice,  how  to  teach  and  how  to   christianize  in  teaching,  we  do  not 


elect  him  for  the  citizenship  of  Liberia.  We  would  rather  detain 
him,  with  all  the  damage  his  unfitness  may  do  to  ourselves,  than  send 
him  over  to  be  a  burden  or  a  pest  in  that  community  which  we  seek 
to  model  for  the  redemption  of  a  continent.  We  do  not  forget  the 
war  of  anti-slavery  upon  us  on  account  of  this  kind  of  selection,  and 
its  vehement  demand  that  colonization  should  wait  for  the  best,  until 
these  could  be  used  at  home,  in  the  work  of  immediate  and  universal 
abolition.  And  now  we  look  to  the  magnanimity  of  the  triumphant 
to  spare  the  intelligence,  and  industry,  and  virtue,  of  which  they  have 
made  so  much,  in  order  to  propagate  for  us  and  Africa  this  glory  of 
the  race. 

Twenty-six  years  ago,  Mr.  President,  at  the  great  anniversary  over 
which  Henry  Clay  presided,  I  believe,  for  the  last  time,  having  the 
President  of  the  United  States  on  his  right,  and  a  vast  audience,  com- 
posed largely  of  statesmen,  ambassadors,  and  philanthropists  of  the 
highest  rank  before  him;  after  almost  every  phase  of  the  subject  had 
been  swept  by  his  magnificent  eloquence  at  the  opening,  and  after  the 
Rev.  Dr.  Fuller,  then  of  Baltimore,  had  followed  him  with  ingenious 
prophecy  and  tender  pathos  which  continued  that  brilliant  assembly 
in  a  trance,  you  were  felicitous  enough,  under  all  the  disadvantage  of 
being  third  orator  in  such  a  succession,  to  hold  the  unflagging  interest 
of  that  house  with  the  great  thought  that  the  work  of  the  Society  is 
more  at  present  with  Africa  than  with  America;  to  make  the  Colony 
attractive  and  draw  to  itself,  without  the  persuasion  of  agencies  here, 
the  crowd  that  must  be  always  eager  to  make  their  own  condition 
better.  That  thought  is  my  gateway  to  another  line  of  truth,  the 
truth  of  facts,  as  well  as  principles,  in  your  beneficent  and  steady 
working  to  this  hour. 

You  began  with  a  careful  and  costly  experiment  on  the  Coast  to 
find  the  most  healthy  location  for  your  Colony.  The  life  of  Mills 
himself  was  paid  in  that  experiment.  But  you  succeeded.  Even 
Plymouth  and  Jamestown,  for  health  to  the  Englishman,  were  not  to 
be  compared  with  Monrovia  for  health  to  the  American  negro.  You 
began  with  a  tutelage  to  govern  the  colonist,  because  the  power  of 
self-government  in  him  had  not  then  been  developed  or  tried  ;  and  he 
became  at  once  heroic  in  the  hands  of  your  Agency;  refused  to  follow 
disheartened  "tutors  and  governors"  back  to  America;  took  the  guar- 
dianship of  himself  into  his  own  hands  ;  declined  the  offer  of  British 
marines  to  protect  him  at  the  price  of  only  a  few  feet  to  be  ceded  for 
their  flagstaff,  and  with  a  band  of  but  thirty-five  fighting  men  repulsed 


the  natives,  led  by  their  kings,  with  eight  hundred  in  one  battle,  and 
double  this  number  in  another.  Such  heroes  were  Lott  Cary  and 
Elijah  Johnson.  They  would  buy  territory  for  themselves  and  make 
their  own  Trustees  of  the  chivalric  Stockton  and  Ayres,  who  pur- 
chased Cape  Mesurado  for  such  colonists  at  the  hazard  of  their  own 
lives.  We  do  not  wonder  that  Ashmun  and  Gurley  hastened  in  their 
wisdom  to  divide  with  such  colonists  the  government  of  their  own 
Commonwealth,  and  that  the  Society  itself  hastened  to  fulfil  its  prom- 
ise from  the  first,  to  resign  its  own  authority  as  soon  as  the  treedman 
<:ould  stand  for  himself 

Nations  are  slow  of  growth,  especially  in  the  cradle  of  their  youth. 
A  centenary  is  the  familiar  unit  with  which  we  measure  the  growth 
of  our  own  in  its  boast  ot  unparalleled  progress.  But  one  quarter  of 
a  century — scarcely  more  than  enough  of  years  to  bring  the  infancy 
of  an  individual  man  to  the  majority  of  manhood — was  enough  to 
bring  your  first  handful  of  emigrants,  who  landed  as  guests  merely  at 
Sierra  Leone  and  Campelar,  without  a  foot  of  territory  or  shore  to  be 
called  their  own,  to  the  dignity  and  independence  of  a  Republic  com- 
plete in  everv  department  of  a  nation's  power,  and  acknowledged  by 
the  greatest  nations  ot  the  world.  And  what  it  the  subsequent  advance 
in  material  greatness  may  not  correspond  with  such  a  beginning,  and 
the  reproach  of  disappointed  hope  may  have  come  to  hinder  the  ex- 
pansion ot  colonization  zeal  among  ourselves  ?  Does  not  lite  in  all  its 
analogies  demand  a  quiet  solidification  to  succeed  a  rapid  growth  ?  It 
would  be  impossible  for  a  narrow  Coast  of  six  hundred  miles  by  fifty, 
with  a  vast  interior  of  teeming  and  savage  people  pressing  on  its  civil- 
ization with  a  proportion  of  twenty-five  to  one,  at  the  process  of  assim- 
ilation, to  go  fast  without  being  overwhelmed.  It  is  the  slowness  of 
safety  ;  it  is  the  compactness  of  unity  ;  it  is  the  balancing  of  maturity  ; 
in  all  respects  the  opposite  of  failure  and  decline,  which  must  explain 
the  present  appearance  of  results  in  Liberia.  Your  thought  is  right 
and  true,  and  your  promise  fulfilled,  that  Africa  is  overtaking  America 
in  the  power  of  attracting  immigration.  Its  agriculture  is  improving, 
its  commerce  increasing;  its  education  already  commands  the  respect 
of  Universities  in  Europe,  and  its  documents  of  State  have  become  the 
admiration  of  Governments  over  the  civilized  world.  The  romance 
of  travel  is  all  gathered  now  to  the  old  continent  which  it  fringes  and 
guards  and  aims  to  redeem.  The  engineer  is  at  the  heels  of  the  ad- 
venturer in  this  age,  and  he  is  always  followed  soon  by  trains  of  immi- 
gration. 


The  attraction  to  Africa  of  her  own  children  will  be  a  stream 
which  is  not  to  be  reversed.  Our  great  asvlum  in  this  land  for  all 
nations  already  suffers  some  reversal.  The  skill  of  industries,  and 
even  the  toil  of  common  labor,  have  almost  crowded  the  voyage  back 
to  the  old  world  of  late,  because  of  the  redundancy  and  the  mixture 
of  races  to  be  met  in  our  workshops  and  fields.  The  discouragement 
of  capital  is  much;  oppressive  legislation  is  more;  but  most  of  all  is 
the  jostle  of  nationalities — Caucasian,  Ethiopian,  and  Mongolian — in 
their  free  fight  for  employment  and  a  living,  the  cause  of  this  back- 
ward turning  from  America.  But  Africa  forbids  by  her  climate  all 
competition  with  her  sons.  There  may  be  on  the  heights  of  her 
grand  interior  safe  retreats  from  the  fever  of  her  Coast  to  attract  in 
coming  time  enough  of  other  kindreds  to  stimulate  the  development 
of  her  own  myriads  and  make  a  civilization  equal  to  the  best  ;  but 
the  din  of  busy  occupation,  the  hum  of  toiling  millions,  the  rewards 
of  tillage  on  her  exuberant  soil  must  be  chiefly,  by  God's  own  appoint- 
ment, Ethiopian. 

His  blessing  has  attended  thus  far  the  work  of  your  hands.  This 
might  indeed  be  counted  on,  when  we  know  it  is  right  and  true  by  its 
principles  and  aims;  and  if  our  depression  had  been  a  thousand  times 
deeper  than  it  ever  was,  the  integrity  of  motive  and  operation  would 
have  assured  us  that  God  is  with  us.  But  see  the  signals  of  His  pres- 
ence and  direction  from  the  beginning.  It  was  no  sudden  or  acci- 
dental thought  of  Dr.  Finley  or  any  other  agent  in  the  first  convoca- 
tion. It  was  older  than  the  Revolution  of  American  Colonies  in  its 
meditation  and  projection,  and  when  the  time  had  come  "all  things 
worked  together  for  good."  Patriotism  in  the  legislative  councils  of 
Virginia  ;  piety  in  the  conference  of  clergymen  at  Princeton,  N.  J., 
and  missionary  ardor  among  the  students  of  theology  at  Andover, 
flowed  together  simultaneously  to  begin  this  organization.  God  has 
ennobled  it  in  the  succession  of  its  Presidents.  Washington,  Carroll, 
Madison,  and  Clay  have  been  the  line  of  your  predecessors.  He  has 
guided  the  selection  of  agents  and  officers  of  every  kind  without  one 
mistake  in  the  appointments  of  human  wisdom.  He  has  prospered 
the  voyage  at  all  times,  without  one  shipwreck  with  loss  of  life  in 
sixty  years.  Truly  we  may  thank  Him  and  take  courage.  "What 
hath  God  wrought?"  We  may  well  rely  on  His  abiding  benediction 
when  we  feel  sure  that  His  own  ark  is  in  it,  as  it  was  in  the  House  of 
Obed-edom. 

The  white  man  sent  with  the  gospel  to  Africa  perishes  quickly  and 


9 

constantly,  as  if  it  were  the  "  breach  upon  Uzzah  "  for  him  to  attempt 
any  more  the  devout  but  deadly  adventure.  And  yet  the  living  min- 
ister must  go  there  with  the  great  commission  upon  him.  It  is  the 
Divine  appointment.  Bibles  and  tracts  and  schools  are  treasures  of 
unspeakable  value  ;  but  we  must  keep  them  "  in  earthen  vessels" — men 
of  like  passions  with  others.  "  The  foolishness  of  preaching,"  more 
than  eloquence  of  any  other  sort,  must  be  made  to  save  men  by  means 
of  sympathy  between  man  and  man.  It  is  the  colored  preacher  that 
must  go,  and  go  as  a  colonist,  identified  with  the  emigrating  band  in 
seeking  a  home,  or  brought  up  in  the  colony  itself  and  educated  there. 
Halfway  back  in  the  lapse  of  your  anniversary  time,  and  more  than 
half  way  back  to  the  first  planting  of  the  colony,  Mr.  Clay  said  from 
that  chair,  "  What  Christian  is  there  who  does  not  feel  a  deep  inter- 
«st  in  sending  forth  missionaries  to  convert  the  dark  heathen  and  bring 
them  within  the  pale  of  Christianity  ?  But  what  missionaries  can  be 
so  potent  as  those  it  is  our  purpose  to  transport  to  the  shores  of  Africa  ? 
Africans  themselves  by  birth,  or  sharing  at  least  African  blood,  will 
not  all  their  feelings,  all  their  best  affections  induce  them  to  seek  the 
good  of  their  countrymen?  At  this  moment  there  are  between  four 
and  five  thousand  colonists  who  have  been  sent  to  Africa  under  the 
care  of  this  Society  ;  there  are  now  twenty-five  places  of  public  wor- 
ship dedicated  to  the  service  of  Almighty  God  and  to  the  glory  of  the 
Saviour  of  men ;  and  I  will  venture  to  say  that  they  will  accom- 
plish as  missionaries  of  the  Christian  religion  more  to  disseminate  its 
blessings  than  all  the  rest  of  the  missionaries  throughout  the  globe." 

About  the  time  our  great  patriotic  statesman  was  talking  thus,  like 
an  eloquent  evangelist,  Lieutenant  Forbes,  of  the  British  Navy,  was 
publishing  his  book  on  Dahomey,  in  which  it  was  virtually  declared 
that  Liberia  was  a  cheat,  and  that  our  Society  was  engaged  in  trans- 
ferring to  the  shores  of  Africa  American  slavery  under  another  name. 
The  prompt  denial  of  this,  and  triumphant  appeal  to  the  Constitution 
of  the  Society  and  the  facts  of  history,  could  not  hinder  the  American 
Anti-Slavery  Society  from  siding  with  Forbes  and  maligning  Clay,  and 
insisting  that  our  officers  had  evaded  the  issue  in  their  emphatic  refu- 
tation. Where,  now,  is  the  truth,  after  all  that  obloquy,  and  the  vic- 
tories of  our  assailants,  and  the  overthrow  of  slavery,  and  the  advent 
of  freedmen  to  search  for  themselves  the  records  of  Congress,  and 
twelve  States  at  least,  and  ecclesiastical  assemblies  innumerable,  attest- 
ing the  singleness  of  aim  with  which  the  Society  has  always  sought 
to   secure   the   liberty  and   culture  and   salvation  of  the   negro?      Our 


10 

existence  itself  at  the  Sixtieth  Anniversary  may  answer.  Persistency 
is  triumph  wherever  truth  is  marshaled.  The  pointing  of  your  finger 
is  equal  to  the  marching  of  a  host,  when  all  things  are  ready.  Vindi- 
cated, established,  and  successful,  beyond  all  precedent,  among  the 
voluntary  societies  of  the  world,  I  would  say  to  you  "stand  still,  and 
see  the  salvation  of  the  Lord."  But  you  have  already  listened  to 
these  words  long  enough,  with  the  raging  of  a  red  sea  before  you, 
and  the  pillar  of  the  cloud  behind  you.  Your  great  opportunity, 
God's  own  opportunity  for  movement,  has  come,  and  louder  than  a 
thousand  billows  the  voice  of  His  Prophet  is  heard,  saying,  "go  for- 
ward." What  if  the  patriotism  and  the  philanthropy  both  should  yet 
be  challenged  and  impugned  whilst  the  public  mind  is  bewildered 
with  the  problem  of  freedmen  at  our  doors  by  the  million.''  Those 
objects  were  feet  in  your  progress.  Take  now  the  wings  which  have 
infolded  them  all  along,  and  spread  these  to  heaven  henceforth,  and 
let  all  men  see  the  ultimate  and  main  identity  of  your  mission : 
"Another  angel  flying  in  the  midst  of  heaven,  having  the  everlasting 
gospel  to  preach  unto  them  that  dwell  on  the  earth,  and  to  every 
nation,  and  kindred,  and  tongue,  and  people." 

Surely  nothing  is  lost  to  humanity  or  patriotism  or  any  other  object 
of  your  manifold  original  by  soaring  in  this  way.  It  is  infinitely  better 
to  be  narrowed  upwards  than  downwards, -to  have  the  expanse  of  a 
firmament  that  touches  everything  with  light  and  life  to  be  your  mar- 
gin than  the  vale  of  cold  and  dark  infidelity,  where  so  many  other 
societies  have  descended  to  die.  Let  it  be  seen  that  the  best  economy 
of  Christian  Missi®ns  attaches  itself  to  the  work  of  Colonization,  as 
Hopkins,  and  Stiles,  and  Mills,  and  Burgess,  and  Ashmun,  and  Alex- 
ander have  taught  us  to  believe,  and  America  and  Africa  both  are 
yours,  and  both  shall  pass  away  from  the  orbit  of  earth  before  the 
crown  of  vour  immortality  shall  fade. 


